LONG POND, Pa.—As much as Jeff Gordon has not had things go his way this year, he never seemed to be far removed from the top performers on the Sprint Cup circuit.

So for him to win the Pennsylvania 400 at Pocono Raceway Sunday certainly was no surprise.

Good fortune finally rained on Gordon—literally.

Gordon shot into the lead when Jimmie Johnson wrecked while battling Matt Kenseth for the lead on a Lap-91 restart and then rode around under caution as rain eventually ended the race 62 laps before its scheduled 160-lap distance.

The win put Gordon in the thick of the wild-card hunt.

What we learned:

Gordon not done yet

Gordon’s victory vaulted him two spots to 13th in the standings and gave him the lead for the second of two wild cards for the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

The two drivers from 11th-20th in the standings with the most wins earn the two wild-card spots. Kasey Kahne, who is 11th, is in position to earn the first wild card. Carl Edwards, in 12th, has no wins and Gordon is tied with Ryan Newman for 13th.

Newman also has a win but Gordon currently owns the tiebreaker of best finish—they both have the same number of first-through-fourth-place finishes but Gordon has more fifths than Newman.

Kyle Busch (15th) and Joey Logano (17th) both have a win but trail in the wild-card standings with five races remaining before the Chase field is set.

Gordon, who had led 427 laps this year and had eight top-10 finishes without a win, doesn’t suddenly consider himself a lock for the Chase.

“This only puts more pressure on us over these next several weeks, but we're ready for the challenge,” Gordon said. “With all we've been through this year, I said if we can get to victory lane and get some things to go our way, this team, because of what we've been through (and) that we've stayed together (and) haven't pointed fingers, it will make you stronger.”

Both Gordon, a four-time Cup champion, and crew chief Alan Gustafson are veterans—Gustafson nearly won the title in 2009 with Mark Martin—and have used their experience to handle the frustration.

Gordon started 27th and drove into the top five to take advantage of the accident at the end.

“It wasn’t like we just fluked into it,” Gordon said.

But it wasn’t like he had the best car, either.

“I can think of a handful of times we were in position to win them, and things didn't go our way for whatever reason,” Gordon said. “To see this race unfold the way it did certainly makes up for a lot of those would have, could have, should haves this year.

“Things are coming together at the right time. The attitude of this team is that we don't ever give up. We keep fighting. We go to the racetrack, try to win. Today we got the win.”

Kyle Busch might be done

While Gordon got a boost from his win, the driver who appeared beaten was Kyle Busch.

Busch fell out of the race when a brake rotor failed on his car on Lap 19. During a season in which he also has suffered several setbacks, Busch is 80 points out of the top 10 and 12 points behind Gordon and Newman.

A week earlier, Busch had finished second at Indianapolis and it appeared he had shaken a stretch of three races with engine trouble and two that ended with accidents.

“We had hoped we had shaken it but obviously it’s not to be,” Busch said. “It’s going to hurt us a lot in the points.

“We’re obviously not going to make the top 10 (in points), so if we get a win, great. We’ll make the Chase. If not, we’ll probably miss it.”

Sometimes it pays to argue

The late-race wreck and early finish left some drivers unhappy with where they finished.

When the caution flag came out for the Lap-91 wreck, NASCAR reset the field as it typically does, by the previous scoring loop—timing lines are embedded around the racetrack.

But NASCAR’s policy is to use video to determine finishing positions when the caution flag comes out on the final lap of the race.

Because the race was never restarted, NASCAR officials went back and looked at video and adjusted positions 16th to 20th.

Sam Hornish Jr. was moved from 16th to 19th, with those behind him—Kevin Harvick, Jamie McMurray and Aric Almirola—each gaining a spot.

That was a minor victory for Harvick crew chief Shane Wilson, who went to the NASCAR hauler to argue his case. But it didn’t make Greg Biffle happy.

Biffle was fourth on the final restart and said he waited for Kenseth to cross in front of him—and slam into Denny Hamlin—before getting back up to speed.

“They put me all the way back to 16th,” said Biffle, who ended up 15th. “There is no way. No way.”